Category Archives: Teachers

Unlike most Brookside teachers, presiding over a classroom of 10- and 11-year-olds was never his dream. Through most of his twenties, Mr. Morey had no idea what to do with his life. He enlisted in the Air Force after graduating from high school, figuring it would be a waste to attend college without a goal in mind. It wasn’t till he earned his teaching degree at age 31 and took charge of his first classroom that he knew he’d made the right career choice. By the time Marbella and Hydea entered his class, he had developed into one of the school’s top teachers – empathetic but firm, willing to experiment, a savvy employer of technology. His classroom demeanor differed from that of most of his colleagues. Where others were nurturing, he taught accountability. He stayed current by listening to his own children’s music and watching their TV shows. Midway through his career, like many male teachers, he returned to school to pursue a degree in administrative studies. Unlike most, he quit before graduating. His true love, he came to realize, was the classroom – sharing a room with 22 students over the course of a year and teaching. He spent the 2010-11 school year struggling for a way to get through to both Marbella and Hydea.

Mrs. Schaefer, mother of two, grandmother of one, has been teaching ever since her eighth birthday, when she asked her parents for a slate blackboard, “just like the ones in school.” At the time, her students were friends, a doll and her older sister (who would also go on to be an elementary school teacher). She began her professional career teaching third graders, but grew fascinated by the science of instructing slow learners to read. Eventually, she became Brookside’s literacy specialist. It proved a complicated and time-consuming job – the school’s reading and writing scores ranked at or near the bottom of the school district. Always an innovator, several years ago she went to the principal, Mr. Hay, with an idea: What if we target the students on the cusp of passing the state standardized test, and provide them with enough special tutelage to push them over the top? If enough of them succeed, we might lift the entire school from failing to passing. Mr. Hay approved. By December of Marbella and Hydea’s fifth-grade year, she had one last slot to fill. She found herself forced to choose between the two.